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The noun kiss-curl (plural kiss-curls) designates a circular curl of hair (sometimes artificial), usually pressed flat against the temple or forehead.—Synonym: beau-catcher.
The noun kiss-curl occurs, for example, in the following from I was so lucky to see Jerry Lee Lewis play live, by Adam Trimingham, published in The Argus (Brighton, East Sussex, England) of Wednesday 22nd September 2021 [page 11, column 4]:
I was in the generation that saw the birth of rock’n’roll in the 1950s when Bill Haley and his Comets became the most popular band in the land.
Such was the demand to see them that the Daily Mirror hired a train to take them from Southampton, where they had arrived from the USA, to London.
But the fans soon found that Haley was no heartthrob. He was a middle aged man with a kiss curl whose stamina was so limited that the Comets only lasted 25 minutes on stage playing their numbers. Significantly they never had another Brit hit.
These are, in chronological order, the earliest occurrences of the noun kiss-curl that I have found:
1-: From Melbourne Punch (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia) of Thursday 21st August 1856 [page 17, column 2]:
CATECHISING CANDIDATES.
Punch is grieved and astonished at the delicacy and diffidence displayed by the electoral body in catechising those gentlemen who offer to devote their time and talents to the public service. […]
[…]
Punch begs to suggest to diffident or unready electors the following interrogations, which may be advantageously addressed to candidates at public meetings, or on the hustings; feeling assured that these questions will be found to have just as direct a bearing upon the political opinions and statesmanlike capacities of those who aspire to become legislators, as the greater part of the inquiries hitherto made by electoral interrogators:—
What is your opinion of the Salic Law?
With regard to the Game of Pool, if I play with the red, instead of my own, the white ball, all the balls being on the table, should the red be placed on its original spot, or be played from baulk?
Are you prepared to introduce a measure for the abolition of crochet, potichomanie 1, minimized bonnets and kiss-curls?
1 The noun potichomanie is a variant of potichomania, designating the art of applying paint or images printed on paper to glass vessels to give them the appearance of painted porcelain.
2-: From Punch, or the London Charivari (London, England) of Saturday 29th November 1856 [page 219, column 1]:
MARY ANN’S NOTIONS.
Dear Mr. Punch,—“I did not suppose it possible that you could be so rude and unkind as you showed yourself a fortnight ago, when I wrote you a letter offering to become your correspondent. I declare, when I read that letter in print, with a picture in the corner, not the least bit in the world like me (though, I admit, rather pretty in its way), I coloured up to the tip-top of my forehead, and I am sure that if I had worn those pastry-cook’s girl’s ornaments called kiss-curls, the gum would have been melted off in a minute. My letter was not intended to be printed, as you must have known. […]
“[…]
“Your,
“Mary Ann.”
3-: From the second edition of A Dictionary of Modern Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words: Used at the Present Day in the Streets of London; the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge; the Houses of Parliament; the Dens of St. Giles; and the Palaces of St. James (London: John Camden Hotten, 1860), by the British publisher and lexicographer John Camden Hotten (1832-1873):
[page 165]:
KISS CURL, a small curl twisted on the temple.—See BOW-CATCHER.
[page 103]:
BOW-CATCHERS, or KISS-CURLS, small curls twisted on the cheeks or temples of young—and often old—girls, adhering to the face as if gummed or pasted. Evidently a corruption of BEAU-CATCHERS. In old times these were called love-locks, when they were the marks at which all the puritan and ranting preachers levelled their pulpit pop-guns, loaded with sharp and virulent abuse. Hall and Prynne looked upon all women as strumpets who dared to let the hair depart from a straight line upon their cheeks. The French prettily term them accroche-cœurs 2, whilst in the United States they are plainly and unpleasantly called SPIT-CURLS. Bartlett says:—“Spit curl, a detached lock of hair curled upon the temple; probably from having been at first filastered 3 into shape by the saliva. It is now understood that the mucilage of quince seed is used by the ladies for this purpose.”
“You may prate of your lips, and your teeth of pearl,
And your eyes so brightly flashing;
My song shall be of that SALIVA CURL
Which threatens my heart to smash in.”
Boston Transcript, October 30, 1858.
When men twist the hair on each side of their faces into ropes they are sometimes called BELL-ROPES, as being wherewith to draw the belles. Whether BELL-ROPES or BOW-CATCHERS, it is singular they should form part of the prisoner’s paraphernalia, and that a jaunty little kiss-me-quick curl should, of all things in the world, ornament a gaol dock; yet such was formerly the case. Hunt, the murderer of Weare, on his trial, we are informed by the Athenæum, appeared at the bar with a highly pomatumed love-lock sticking tight to his forehead. Young ladies, think of this!
2 The French noun accroche-cœur (plural: accroche-cœur, also occasionally accroche-cœurs) translates literally as heart-catcher.
3 The word filastered is a misprint of plastered, which is the word that is used (s.v. Spit-Curl, page 435) in the second edition of Dictionary of Americanisms. A glossary of words and phrases usually regarded as peculiar to the United States (Boston (Massachusetts): Little, Brown and Company, 1859), by the U.S. historian and linguist John Russell Bartlett (1805-1886).
4-: From Doing Too Much, an essay by the British author Eliza Cook (1818-1889), published in The Odd-Fellows’ Magazine: The Quarterly Magazine of the Independent Order of Odd-Fellows, Manchester Unity Friendly Society (Manchester, Lancashire, England) of July 1862 [page 140]:
We now see young maidens with (we are ashamed to write it) more colour in their cheeks and lips than God gave them. We see them with their persons so ostensibly adorned by the combination of showy flowers, flaunting lace, kiss-curls, visible pearl powder, and “fast” mantles, that it is difficult to distinguish between the lady who belongs to a respectable family, and the questionable individual who would be perfectly “at home” in a casino polka.
5-: From A White Hand and a Black Thumb, by Henry Spicer, published in All the Year Round. A Weekly Journal. Conducted by Charles Dickens (London, England) of Saturday 6th February 1864 [chapter 12, page 553]:
“I’ve come to ask you to eat a beefsteak with me, Master Haggerdorn,” said the visitor, in a provincial accent of considerable breadth. […] Your brother bade me ask you.”
“My brother!”
“There’s his token” (giving Arthur a long twisted lock), “one of his kiss-curls, belle-catchers, as we call ’em in—hem—in Lincolnshire. He said he shouldn’t want it no more. Bless you, I know all about it!”
6-: From The Female Detective (London: Ward and Lock, 1864), by ‘Andrew Forrester, Jun.’ (pen name of the British novelist and playwright James Redding Ware – 1832-c. 1909) [A Child Found Dead: Murder or No Murder, page 180]:
Hardal knew that a number of our boys used gum-water, scented with various perfumes, for making kiss-curls, and sticking them on their foreheads. These were the boys we called dandies.
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